The Invincible Diddlewader
by rhyejess
Summary: Luna and Neville do a little inadvertent creature-hunting.


They walked down to the lake, their hands barely brushing. Neville sensed that Luna was expecting him to reach out and hold hers, but he was simply too unsure to actually do so. He felt warmth with each brushing pass. So consumed was he with Luna's radiant presence that, when they stopped beneath an oak tree on the shore of the Black Lake, he had to pause and take in his surroundings. Neville scanned the water, watching the play of sunlight on the ripples, but soon he noticed that Luna was not looking at the water at all, but at a spot very near her feet.

"I thought I saw..." She knelt in the warm grass, then exhaled a grasp. "Oh wow," she said, leaning down until the tips of green grass nearly touched her nose.

Neville peered over her shoulder, but he saw nothing. She pushed aside sprigs of grass with careful and meticulous hands. At the base of the grass, crawling on the cool soil, Neville saw it: a small, furry caterpillar.

"I've never seen one of these," Luna continued, cupping and carefully bring the creature up from the ground.

Neville started to respond to this, sure that Luna was mistaken- but then maybe Luna _had_ never seen a caterpillar before. He would do better to keep his mouth shut.

"It's a Diddlewader," she said, holding out her hands so that he could inspect her find.

He leaned in to see the small creature as her gentle hands unfolded around it. "Is that a kind of caterpillar then?"

Her large eyes giving him the strangest look. "No silly, it only _looks_ like a caterpillar." Moving her hands impossibly closer to his face so that he nearly had to cross his eyes to see into them, she explained with a breathy exhilaration, "This is one of the rarest and most powerful magical creatures."

"Then why I haven't I heard of it?" Neville asked, clamping his mouth shut as soon as he heard himself speak. That had been pretty rude, hadn't it?

"It's _rare_," Luna shot back. Her eyes grew slightly distant then, as she stared in admiration at the caterpillar.

Not sure whether he was humoring her or whether to actually believe her, Neville asked "Uh, what, uh, does it do?". His question was answered with one of the most beautiful and radiant smiles he thought he had ever seen, and he was glad he had asked.

"It's nearly impervious," Luna answered, entire face aglow with respect for the creature in her hands. She set it down carefully back in the grass. "Go ahead," she prompted Neville, "try a spell on it."

Neville drew his wand and licked his lips, unsure what spell he might try on a caterpillar. "_Incendio_," he muttered with just enough intention to send a spout of flame towards the minute creature. The flame boiled away harmlessly into the air, reflected by something that Neville could only think of as a miniature, invisible _Protego_. "Wow," Neville breathed.

"Try another," Luna encouraged. "Go on."

"_Reducio_," Neville said, pointing his wand directly at the Diddlewader. The blue flash of light that indicated his spell seemed to reflect off the invisible shield once more, darting off harmlessly in a new direction, where it intersected a tree leaf. The target leaf shrunk and immediately fluttered down from the overhead branch.

"That would be really helpful, in a fight," Neville exclaimed, his own admiration matching Luna's now.

"No!" Luna exclaimed, picking up and cradling the small creature once more. "We mustn't tell anyone," Luna said in her hushed and conspiratorial voice. "They were hunted nearly to extinction by wizards, hoping that their powers could be harnessed."

"_Were_ their powers ever harnessed," Neville asked, wide-eyed.

"No, of course not. If you kill them, their powers die with them." She stroked the creature gently, then turned her large eyes back to Neville imploringly. "You have to promise not to tell anyone I've found it."

"I promise," Neville stammered. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm going to let it go on its way of course," she answered, setting it on a lower branch of the tall tree overhead.

Neville stood next to her, and together they watched the innocent creature go back about its life.

"It's amazing," Luna said quietly, "That a creature so small and innocent could also be so powerful."

Neville turned to see Luna as she gazed longingly up at the tree branch, and to him it did not seem so amazing after all. "Gran says innocence is a gift," he said quietly.

"Maybe," she pursed her lips, turning to smile at him, "As long as no one hunts you near extinction."

Neville said nothing, but he was sure at that moment that he and Luna were thinking of the same thing: of the war, of Voldemort, of the fight at the Ministry, and Harry's godfather's death and all the other deaths that accompanied Voldemort's rise to power. Why did innocents have to die?

"It gives me hope," Luna whispered. "The Diddlewader," she clarified, as if he didn't know what she was talking about.

"Yeah," Neville answered, and he finally reached out and took her hand.


End file.
